Library cards

November 9, 2006

By Randy Mantik

I discovered I had a few items due at the library. Typically, that wouldn’t be of any great concern, but these were some wonderful books I had been reading on issues of spirituality and godliness and I hadn’t gotten through them yet. So I was pretty disappointed when I realized they would have to be returned.

Often, you can renew an item, so I checked the library Web site. Another patron had put the books on hold; they couldn’t be renewed. I dutifully stacked the books on the kitchen counter so they’d be ready to return the next morning. Off to bed I went.

In the night I had a revelation: I realized those books had been checked out on Debbie’s library card, not mine. However, it was I who had requested the library find the books to begin with. That meant the books were still on hold to me! The light dawned — I was the culprit!

I was forcing myself to take back the very books I didn’t want to take back yet! I went online again, took off the hold I had put on the books, went back to Deb’s account, tried renewing them and voila! — it worked! All was sweetness and light once again.

I thought I had to return the books and therefore be deprived of keeping them. However, I realized I was the one who was creating this inconvenience by my own hold on the books.

My library experience got me to thinking about one of the most basic spiritual principles of all — forgiveness. We are withholding God’s blessings on our lives by not releasing forgiveness to others.

In Matthew 18, Jesus tells a story about a man who was forgiven a huge debt. He immediately put great pressure on someone else to pay back a tiny debt they owed him. The ruler who forgave the man the huge debt heard how he had put a “hold” on the much smaller debt that was due to him. In anger, the ruler reinstated the debt and turned the man over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed.

When we put a hold of unforgiveness on our relationships with others, demanding they immediately pay whatever “debt” they may owe us, we are also making our own debt to our Master due and payable right now. Jesus goes on to make the stinging application: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:35, NIV).

You see, by our free forgiveness, by “releasing the holds,” we make room for God to forgive us and to do in our lives what He desires. As we release or let go of human forgiveness, (which is so often weak and imperfect), divine forgiveness can come.

We need to ask God to help us to forgive like He does so that true forgiveness may be released through us. “But it’s impossible to forgive them for what they have done!” we may protest. That is precisely the point. With us it is impossible, but with God nothing is impossible. We must go to the Lord for mercy so we can show mercy.

Do you think God will release blessing and favor in your life if you have a hold on bitter feelings towards anyone, no matter how badly they may have treated you? Are you putting a hold on your own freedom and communion with God because of that self-imposed hindrance? Remember what I had to do to renew those library books I wanted so much? I had to release the hold I had placed on them and then I was free to take them and enjoy them once more.

Release the holds in your life. Allow God’s divine ability to forgive to flow in and make you free!

Randy Mantik is senior pastor of Crossroads Church of the Assemblies of God in Pembine, Wis.